‘You don’t try and strike a bargain after a deal’s been done,’ Áróra told the car salesman who sat behind his broad desk, leaned back in his chair and made himself comfortable. He was nothing like the man Áróra had met a week before, when he had hunched over the desk, trembling hands fiddling with a row of model cars, practically choking with sobs as he begged her to help him. He said that it wouldn’t be long before he would be having to sleep at the showroom; that was if he didn’t find out where his wife – with whom he was in the middle of a turbulent divorce process – had stashed the money they had saved over the last twenty years of marriage. It was a very tidy amount. There was a chance that a small portion of it had come from the showroom’s overseas commissions, which hadn’t all been declared to the taxman. This was why he wasn’t keen to get the British authorities involved, but instead had come to Áróra.

She had tracked the cash down, and now, after his initial relief, it seemed that the car salesman had become puffed up with arrogance and wanted to go back on the agreement he had struck with Áróra that would have seen her get a ten percent cut of whatever she found for him.

He snapped a piece of nicotine gum from the blister pack on the table in front of him and popped it into his mouth. His hair had been freshly cut and the jeans he wore with a blazer were a little too tight to be comfortable. She guessed that this was an attempt to turn the clock back. No doubt he had dumped his wife, replacing the person with whom he had built up the company with a newer model. That would explain her bitter enmity.

‘That’s a ridiculously high percentage for something that took Cold as 7less than a week,’ he said, chewing his gum fast and hard, as people do when they’ve recently stopped smoking.

‘That week meant a trip to Switzerland, ten hours of online research and purchasing data, so that week entails significant costs and time on my part. I work fast and I get results,’ Áróra said, speaking slowly and clearly to be certain he would understand. ‘That’s the percentage we agreed on when I said I’d search for your money.’

‘That’s extortionate,’ the car salesman said, folding his arms across his middle. ‘I’m not paying that.’

Áróra sighed. This happened more frequently that anyone could imagine. First there would be despair over lost cash, so people agreed to a high percentage, but once the money had been found it seemed that they only then began to realise just how expensive her services were.

‘It’s ten percent of the overall value, or nothing.’